p. 19 | What is Truth

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 16, 1863

“What is Truth.”

“WHAT IS TRUTH?” said jesting Pilate, and never waited for a reply. “Art THOU A KING, then?” said Pilate equally in jest, and paid no attention to the reply. The race of PILATE will never be extinct. Were the Roman procousul to come to life again, he would find a numerous family of descendants. Three-fourths, at least, of professing Christendom are Pilates in their hearts. They do not wish to destroy Christ, nor do they much care for defending him. They are cool and indifferent. They wash their hands and say they are clean every whit. They are satisfied like Pilate, with the outward ceremonial, but care as little as he did for the inward reality. Pilate did not deny that our Lord was King, he only laughed at the idea. No one now denies that the Lord is King they only laugh at the mention of the Kingdom. Then comes the solemn answer, “My kingdom is not of this world”—an answer that will stand good against all the Pilates of the Christian apostasy, and one that has been shamefully perverted.

Christendom, like Pontius Pilate, passes over with a good-humored laugh the mention of the kingdom of God. It listens with good humor because it believes it to be a harmless jest. Were it to be offered in reality they would crucify the Son of God afresh, to get rid of the nuisance of his government. Press them hard upon the subject, and they have their answer ready. “My kingdom is not of this world. Does not the Lord tell us that his kingdom is not a worldly but a spiritual one? Are you not satisfied with so conclusive a reply?”

We answer that we are satisfied with the reply, but by no means with the interpretation. Our Lord never said that his kingdom was not OVER this world, he only says that it is not of this world; and if any one will look at the original Greek Testament he will find that “of” means “out of,” or “from out of.” It is certainly true that the Kingdom of God does not arise “out of” the world, for the world hates it more than it hates the kingdom of the Evil One; but it is equally certain that the Kingdom of God will be “OVER” this world. Our Lord's kingdom does not rise “out of” the world, and therefore, as he says, his servants did not employ an army of flesh and blood to establish his kingdom, because his kingdom was not to take its ORIGIN from the world, or powers of the earth. But that is all which his answer implies. He never says that his kingdom is not OVER this world, nor would it have been possible for him to have said so; for the angel Gabriel, in Luke declares that the Son of Mary shall reign on the throne of his Father David. The throne of David, we know was literal not spiritual, and, therefore, in spite of Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate, and modern Christendom, the Son of David shall reign OVER the world; and “of his kingdom there shall be no end.”

The capital city of that Kingdom will be the New Jerusalem—a “city having foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” It is the place of which our Lord spoke when he said to the apostles, “I go to PREPARE a place for you.” From those words we may infer that the New Jerusalem has been in preparation ever since, or least that it is in preparation now.—The last Vials.